Women increasingly becoming cruise captains: CondeNast Traveler

This is an interesting summary not only of the new women ship's captains but the fresh networks that are helping right the gendered imbalance in the maritime work force: Women Offshore (https://womenoffshore.org/author/allison-cedeno/) and the Scarlet Squad. (The first ones began in the 1990s, in the US and New Zealand).

Cameroonian Nicholine Tifuh Azirh became, the first West African woman to work on the bridge of a cruise ship, is also featured.

This article  by  Cynthia Drescher,  ‘With More and More Women Taking the Helm, the Cruise Industry is Setting an Example,' is from CondeNast Traveller, 21. 2.2019
https://www.cntraveler.com/story/why-there-are-more-female-cruise-ship-captains-than-ever. I've just added some sub-headings and extra pictures.

"I’m so excited to share the news of our partnership with RMU and to welcome Nicholine [Tifuh Azirh] onboard,” says Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, of Celebrity Cruises. “Nicholine isn’t just a new-hire, she symbolizes hope for women around the world who dream of working in a male-dominated industry.” Picture by Diego Texera/Courtesy Celebrity Cruises

'Kate McCue was walking along a beach on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten last June when an attendant asked if she was heading back to one of the cruise ships docked there for the day. 
Wearing a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses and a sundress over a swimsuit, McCue certainly looked the part of the relaxed vacationer. 

She replied, however, that she worked onboard, then asked the attendant to guess her role on the ship. 
“I think you’re the captain’s wife, but if you’re not, then I think you’re the cruise director’s wife,” he said. 
McCue's reply—"What do you think if I tell you I’m the captain?”.
[T]he man’s shocked but enthusiastic reaction, was posted on her Instagram account, and the short exchange has racked up more than 16,000 views and a deluge of supportive comments from viewers. 

Some even vow to only cruise on whatever ship she’s captaining (currently the Celebrity Equinox).
McCue [pictured below] may be the first American woman to captain a cruise ship, an honor she earned in 2015, but her story is emblematic of a paradigm shift in the cruise industry, where, for the first time, more women are taking the helm. 

Women now constitute between 18 and 20 percent of the cruise industry workforce, and five to 22 percent of cruise ship officers are women, depending on the line. 

Compare this to the global airline pilot industry’s five percent female statistic, and it’s clear that cruising is making waves (pun intended).

PROGRESS HAS BEEN HARD

Not that progress has been easy, of course. Having a woman on a ship’s bridge was once considered a major no-no.
[C]enturies of folklore painted women as sirens, mermaids, or demons who distracted crew and angered the sea gods into stirring up stormy weather.
During the 19th century, the only female presence found on many ships would have been the carved wooden figurehead of an open-eyed, bare-breasted woman affixed to its bow—a totem the sailors believed would bring navigational luck while shaming the seas into calm weather. 

SUPERSTITION DISPLACED

Ship officers, meanwhile, traditionally came from countries like Greece, Italy, England, and Norway—cradles of seagoing tradition and home to a plethora of professional maritime academies, many of which did not admit women until the last quarter-century.
But nautical superstitions die hard. 

The growing availability to all of a professional maritime education, combined with seemingly common sense developments like sexual harassment prevention training and making marine workwear available for women at sea, opened the way to shipboard leadership.
[A]nd, in the last decade, cruise lines have been enthusiastically promoting women to the top ranks.

“THERE ARE SHIFTS TO NOT ONLY HIRE MORE WOMEN, BUT ALSO RETAIN A FEMALE WORKFORCE, EFFECTIVELY OPENING OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN TO PURSUE LEADERSHIP ROLES," SAYS ALLY CEDENO, FOUNDER OF WOMEN OFFSHORE.

PIONEERS

The first woman appointed captain of a cruise ship was Karin Stahre-Janson of Sweden, who took command of Royal Caribbean’s Monarch of the Seas in 2007. 

Other lines that have added their first female captains include: 

• Cunard (Inger Klein Thorhauge)
•  P&;O Cruises (Sarah Breton)
•  Windstar(Belinda Bennett, the industry’s first black female captain), 
• Sea Cloud Cruises (Kathryn Whittaker)
•  AIDA (Nicole Langosch)
• Silversea (Margrith Ettlin). 

• 

Just this week, luxury line Regent Seven Seas Cruises announced that its newest ship, the Seven Seas Splendor, set to debut in 2020, will be the first brand new cruise ship to have a woman, Serena Melani [pictured, right] as its first master. 

(A ship’s master is the captain captain and the ultimate authority onboard, while a staff captain is the second-in-command and next to take a ship of their own.) 

CELEBRITY 'FIRSTS'

Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, president and CEO of Celebrity Cruises—and Kate McCue's boss—is a "first" herself. 
In 2014 she became the first woman to run a publicly traded cruise line, a position she’s held while developing initiatives to recruit more women to shipboard leadership roles. 
Celebrity now leads the industry, with women accounting for 22 percent of its bridge teams. 

2/13 CELEBRITY 'MASTERS'

The Celebrity fleet of 13 ships counts two female masters—McCue on the Celebrity Equinox, and Nathaly Albán, the first Ecuadorian cruise ship captain, on the Celebrity Xploration—and two female staff captains, Wendy Williams and Maria Gotor, as well as many more at other officer levels.
Yet another industry first came when Lutoff-Perlo had a chance meeting with a female cadet from Ghana’s Regional Maritime University.
Learning that women enrolled at the institution have no career path following graduation other than turning around to assist or teach at the university, Lutoff-Perlo helped forge a partnership with the school to create a pipeline for female maritime professionals from Africa.
[As a result] in 2017 RMU Cadet and Cameroonian Nicholine Tifuh Azirhbecame the first West African woman to work on the bridge of a cruise ship. 
All this trailblazing was also key in Celebrity’s convincing Malala Yousafzai, the female education activist and Nobel laureate, to christen and be godmother of the line’s newest ship, Celebrity Edge, in December 2018.

SUPPORTIVE NETWORKS HELP

"That said, no one goes straight from the maritime academy classroom to the dress whites and formal nights of a cruise ship career. Ally Cedeno, [pictured right] a chief mate of unlimited tonnage vessels and an offshore dynamic positioning operator, founded the Women Offshore organization to foster and support female interest in maritime professions. 

She tells Traveler that the organization's mission is to offer “virtual mentorships,” describing them as “a free resource for any woman, regardless of what body of water she works in.” 

Cedeno believes now is (finally) the time for women to rule the waves. “There are shifts to not only hire more women, but also retain a female workforce, effectively opening opportunities for women to pursue leadership roles," she says. 
"Addressing the gender gap has gone beyond recruitment practices to focus on maternity leave, availability of technical uniforms, mentoring, and harassment prevention guidelines.”Seeking out mentorships is also the advice of Uniworld River Cruises CEO Ellen Bettridge, whose line recently shook up the staid river cruising industry with initiatives to welcome LGBTQ+ couples and families as well as millennials. 

“Cruising is one of hospitality’s great innovators,” she says. “I do believe that women have a special understanding of the power that lies in making connections, and so I encourage young women to find an experienced person who can help them navigate their careers.
 And when you make it, be that person for someone else.”


GENDER DIVERSITY IS AS CRITICAL TO A SHIP AS IT IS TO ANY ENTERPRISE, ENCOURAGING TEAMWORK AND CREATIVITY WHILE BRINGING A RANGE OF PERSPECTIVES FOR BETTER, MORE INFORMED, AND EVEN FASTER DECISION MAKING

VIRGIN'S SCARLET SQUAD

The numbers of women on cruise ship bridges is only expected to grow, especially with newbie cruise line Virgin Voyages actively recruiting women to the bridge of their first ship, Scarlet Lady, due to begin sailing in 2020. 
Virgin has formed a “Scarlet Squad” with the explicit intent of “growing leadership roles for women in marine, technical, and hotel management positions onboard.” 

Dee Cooper, senior vice president of design for Virgin Voyages, tells Traveler that their shoreside team is 60 percent female, and they have set a goal for their shipboard crew to be at least 50 percent female. 
"We need to rebalance the field," she said at a recent press conference in New York City, when Virgin Voyages announced its sailings were open for booking.
 "And we're focusing our attention on recruitment and mentoring to do it."

2019: DIVERSITY

A cruise ship may be a vacation factory for its guests, but it's also a workplace for the hundreds or thousands of crew onboard. 
Gender diversity is as critical to a ship as it is to any enterprise, encouraging teamwork and creativity while bringing a range of perspectives for better, more informed, and even faster decision making. 
It’s also just good business sense. 

Women make the lion’s share of decisions and bookings in the $7.6 billion dollar travel and tourism industry, so having women at all levels means better representing and relating to customers. 
And with 2019 set to be the biggest year ever for new cruise ships—24 deliveries will bring another 42,488 beds to the seas—there's never been more opportunity in the industry, not to mention improved chances that the woman on the beach lounger next to you is your captain.

 

'Lesbian ship' US navy to set off on Friday

NASA astronaut Sally Ride in the interior of the Challenger space shuttle, 1984. Photo by Space Frontiers/Getty Images)

On Friday a ship named after a pioneering Dr Sally Ride (1951-2012), the first US woman astronaut, will set forth. Naming the ship after her is in the same tradition as naming a vessel after civil rights leader Harvey Milk, earlier this year. Will it be as controversial?

And the sailing forth of the R/V Sally Ride raises the question of who would we in the UK choose? So many LGBTQI pioneers would be appalled at being associated with the military. I can't ever see there being an HMS Peter Tatchell or HMS Sue Sanders. What about you?

And anyway UK naval ships are named after previous UK naval ships, as well referring to concepts such as Illustrious, Invincible. Yes, they're about spin, but it's military-related spin. So I wonder if there ever could one called the Justice, the Diversity, the Out& Proud.

READ MORE ABOUT IT
The text below is a doctored lift from this article, US Navy Names Another Ship After An LGBT Pioneer, by Cody Gohl 11/3/2016: http://www.newnownext.com/us-navy-sally-ride-ship/11/2016/ I've just added some pictures.

The United States Navy will commission a ship Friday named for Sally Ride, the late lesbian astronaut who in 1983 became the first American woman in space on the STS-7 mission.

Ride, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2012, was not publicly out during her lifetime, but had been in a relationship with Tam O’Shaughnessy for over two decades.

At the Sally Ride Research Vessel christening in Annacortes, WA were (left to right) Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla; Tam O’Shaughnessy, co-founder and current CEO of Sally Ride Science; Margaret Leinen, Vice Chancellor for Marine Sciences; and Walter Munk, renowned Scripps Insitution of Oceaongraphy scientist.

“I think she’d be thrilled,” O’Shaughnessy told The San Diego Union-Tribune, regarding the R/V Sally Ride. “There are so many connections — Scripps and being female and having the first academic research vessel being named after a woman. That’s just keeping with what she was all about her whole life.”

“She probably would want to sign up for an expedition,” she added.

SEE THE VID:

https://youtu.be/YgZ_LLnWsPU?list=PLHy4NEP75tDm2n88TdyvPzStNZ3aCAzQC

The R/V Sally Ride (pictured here under construction) is a new vessel classified as an AGOR ship, or one that will be used for auxiliary general oceanographic research. These types of ships are generally named after trailblazing explorers—this marks the first time one has been named after a woman.

Owned by the Navy but operated by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the vessel will gather research on the planet’s oceans in order to combat ecological decay. It will set off Friday for its first voyage to investigate plate tectonics.

Sally Ride meeting President Obama. She was a member of the President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology. Photo credit: Whitehouse.gov

Janet Taylor, Pioneer of Sea Navigation

On Monday 15 August a new book is published: Mistress of Science — The Story of the Remarkable Janet Taylor, Pioneer of Sea Navigation, by John S Croucher and Rosalind F Croucher, Amberley Publishing, Stroud, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mistress-Science-Remarkable-Pioneer.../1445659859.

An astronomer and navigation expert Janet Ionn, later Mrs Taylor, (1804-1870) made important contributions to maritime life. But she was cash-strapped at times, died in poverty and was never properly respected by the elite of the British naval world, though others esteemed her innovations and generosity.

Guest contributor John Croucher, one of the authors, reveals the story behind the book:

“My desire to write Janet Ionn Taylor’s story was a deeply personal one. I am her great-great-great-great nephew, descended from Janet’s eldest brother, William Ionn. His grandson emigrated to Australia. His daughter Olive Stella Ionn married Henry Croucher, my father's father.
As a statistician, a Professor at Macquarie University, Sydney, I was intrigued by my super-talented ‘aunt’, and the mathematical ‘gene’ that connected us.
Sydney Ross Croucher, my father had made a few tentative enquiries. That opened up a correspondence with Lieutenant Commander Ken Alger.
Alger had been a teacher of navigation on the very same site that Janet had conducted her Nautical Academy for over thirty years in the middle of the 19th century. Ken’s modest 1982 pamphlet about Janet’s life whetted my appetite to find out more.

What kind of woman runs a London navigation school, has eight children (and three step-children), patents a nautical instrument like these below and swings ships? (Pictured, the compass, octant and binnacle she manufactured.)

What started as, for me, a journey of curiosity resulted in a determination to tell her story. I wanted to fill in a unique, and missing, piece in the history of sea navigation.
Rosalind Croucher, the co-author, my wife, and an Adjunct Professor of Law at Macquarie University, is a legal historian. Her work is in 19th century women’s legal history - and incidentally she is thought to be a descendent of James Cook.
She shared my curiosity and together we sought to recreate the life of Janet for this biography.

Looking for evidence
The story was written by our piecing together all the surviving publicly available historical records. This included things like:
~ correspondence with the Admiralty
~ letters to the Editor of the Nautical Magazine
~ baptism, marriage and death records
~ census records.
Janet also provided considerable insights in her way of thinking – her religious feelings and general philosophy – in the dedications and introductions in her many books.

But the sense of the private person is challenging to find, without the benefit of a personal diary.
A handful of private letters to family were of some assistance, together with the recollections of those close to her. On a rainy March weekend in Brittany, two of my distant cousins, Elizabeth Soulsby and her younger sister Winifred Cameron, brought out a rolled parchment.
Penned by Janet’s youngest brother the year before she died, this document provided many insights into many of his family members. It provided a backbone to support the essential structure of the narrative, particularly of Janet’s early years.
Without a diary the gaps between the events that are publicly recorded had to be filled in. Here we used a process of reconstruction, combining the fragments of surviving records together with deductions based upon the experience of women of her time and place in history to provide the narrative detail.
Throughout the book are also interwoven descriptions of many of the historic happenings of the day and their imagined impact on Janet and her family, given where she lived, and the nature of the events.

Modern links
And then there were the many hours spent with Ron Robinson, master compass adjuster and raconteur extraordinaire, in Hamble. His knowledge and admiration for Janet, his ease with the subject borne of a great mastery, and love of a good conversation enhanced the book we constructed.
It is very sad that Ron passed away on 6 July 2016, missing the fruition of Janet’s story. But his daughter, Jo, his student and business partner, carries on his fine tradition of compass adjusting.

Remembering
In June 2004, we provided a new headstone for Janet, in her family’s graveyard at the parish church of St Helen Auckland. It had the following inscription:
DEDICATED TO JANET TAYLOR (BORN JANE ANN IONN), MATHEMATICIAN, ASTRONOMER, AUTHOR, INSTRUMENT MAKER, INVENTOR AND FOUNDER OF HER OWN NAUTICAL ACADEMY. RESTORED BY HER DESCENDANT PROFESSOR JOHN S. CROUCHER AND HIS WIFE ROSALIND, AUSTRALIA, 2004, IN HONOUR OF THE 200TH ANNIVERSARY OF HER BIRTH.
(Photo courtesy of John Bake)

Within the constraints of a headstone, we sought to give, for posterity, a summation of her life’s work. And together we completed this book in the hope that, in a small way, her extraordinary story may now seen in the light it deserves.”

Editor’s Note
There is also a very interesting article by Rosalind and John, which reveals how much her lower social class and her useful applied theories meant she was less respected than her peer, Mary Somerville. This admiral’s daughter was more famous and feted, but less useful. ‘Mrs Janet Taylor and the Civil List Pension - a claim to recognition by her country’, Women's History Review, 2012 , vol 21, no 2, pp253-80.

Belinda Bennett, first black woman cruisehip captain

Today a Southampton woman, Belinda Bennett, became the first black woman captain in the cruise industry. Captain of the Windstar, she joins the handful of pathbreakers who have become captains of cruise ships since 2007.
‘“Having been with Windstar for the past 11 years, I couldn’t be more honored to serve as Captain with such a respected and hard-working team,” said Bennett. “Earning this title has been a long and exciting professional journey.”’

Windstar wrote:
“We are thrilled to have appointed Belinda as Windstar’s first-ever female Captain and we understand may be the cruise industry’s first-ever black Captain,” said Hans Birkholz, Windstar Cruises’ chief executive officer.
“She has earned her spot at the helm and I’m excited to see her in action, guiding the crew and our guests on Wind Star through some of the world’s most incredible destinations for years to come.”
‘Hailing originally from St. Helena – a part of the British Overseas Territory, encompassing Ascension and Tristan da Cunha islands – Bennett naturally became immersed with life at sea, having started as a Deck Cadet at age 17 on her home island ship the RMS St. Helena.
‘Just four years later, she climbed the ranks as Third Officer and ultimately stayed on board for an additional five years, until departing in 2003 as Second Officer.
'Following a brief stretch as Chief Officer for the SS Delphine, a private charter yacht, and Isle of Man Steam Packet ferries, Bennett joined Windstar Cruises as Second Officer at the Port of Monaco in September 2005.
‘Bennett worked on a variety of Windstar Cruises ships over her 11-year career with the small ship luxury line, transitioning to chief officer and now captain.

KEY QUESTIONS
1. What did you want to be when you were little?
I wanted to be a marine biologist in my younger years. I guess I always had a passion for the sea!

2.What qualities must someone possess to become a good cruise ship captain?
You have to be a good communicator – able to both talk and listen. You also need to be visible to both guests and the crew.

3.What are your favorite ports-of-call and why?
I so love the Dalmatian coast. The Croatian coastline and ports are beautiful! And for anyone who has sailed with me, they know I have a particular affinity for Sorrento in Italy, where I have a personal traditional of buying Italian leather handbags. You’ll notice the word “handbags” is plural.
http://blog.windstarcruises.com/2016/03/diversity-sails-forward-introducing-captain-belinda-bennett-windstars-first-black-female-ships-master

BELINDA'S HISTORIC PREDECESSORS
An illustrated summary of the modern pioneering women captains can be found here:http://maritimeolympiad.com/women-at-sea.

But women captains on all sorts of ships do have an earlier history, from Betsy Miller in the 1860s. Tellingly, few were black or even mixed race until the last few years. (But that's as far as we know, from a western perspective. There will be other, African and Asian, stories.)
Want to know what it took to be a woman master in a man's world, in the past? Try my history book, From Cabin ‘Boys’ to Captains: 250 years of women at sea. www.thehistorypress.co.uk/publication/cabin-‘boys’-to-captains/9780752488783.

Chinese women sailors in navy

Since writing a few days ago about Soviet women sailors, this 2013 article about Chinese women seafarers has been drawn to my attention. I'm re-posting part of it here, plus the link (http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90786/8133836.html)and some extra pictures.
(It's worth saying that earlier Chinese history women sailing on, and even commanding, 19C pirate vessels, and Sisters nursing on naval hospital ships in WW2. They don't seem to have been ordinary merchant seafarers as the post-1930s Soviet women were.)

"
Chronicle of events of Chinese female sailors on warships

● In 1991, a hospital ship of the South China Sea Fleet of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy carrying 17 servicewomen made a round of visits to the Nansha Islands in South China Sea. This is the first time for the Chinese naval servicewomen to carry out tasks along with a ship.

●In 2002, four servicewomen participated in the first around-the-world voyage of the PLA Navy.
Since December 2008, many batches of female sailors of the PLA Navy have participated in the escort mission in the Gulf of Aden. Previously, they had mainly undertaken such service and support work as medical treatment, translation and culture.

● In 2010, 14 female soldiers were temporarily assigned to the combat duty posts of signal, radar, steering and boatswain of the Chinese naval escort ships in the Gulf of Aden.

● In March 2010, the first female sailor training team was founded at a training base of the North China Sea Fleet of the PLA Navy. After a five-month-long training, the first batch of 24 female sailors acquired at least eight professional skills including damage control, knotting and chemical defense of surface ships, and became the first batch of female sailors of the PLA Navy.

● In September 2012, the PLA Navy attempted to expand the service scope of female soldiers in surface ship units, and gradually established and improved the system and measures for organization and equipment, education and training, and management and support of female soldiers."
--

Female soldiers in China-Russia joint drill come into focus
（Xinhua） 08:25, July 15, 2013

"Female sailors of Chinese Navy participate in escort mission in Gulf of Aden
(People's Daily Online November 05, 2013).Female sailors of the 'Jinggangshan' ship under the escort taskforce of the Navy of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) are holding combat positions in escort mission in Gulf of Aden.They have completed the training of common subjects, such as seamanship, damage control and battlefield rescue, and professional subjects, such as navigation, radio operation and signal."

Soviet women commanding ships

Pic: Valentina Orlikova and colleagues on the bridge of WW2 merchant ship

In surfing yet again for women seafarers’ history in different countries I realised that a new researcher doing the same thing,looking for Soviet women at sea, could easily be under a big misapprehension.
The prominence on the internet of Soviet pioneers Anna Shchetinina and Valentina Orlikova might lead people to think they were exceptions, like Victoria Drummond.(This British marine engineer pictured below was, like them, breaking through in the 1930s.)

In fact, Captains Valentina and Anna were two of many thousands of Soviet women in the merchant navy from the 1930s who did ‘men's' jobs: deck, engineering and radio work, rather than hotel-side work.
~ Anna Shchetinina (1908-1999) certainly was the first Soviet woman in the world to serve as a certificated captain of an ocean-going vessel. (see pics below, and many other images on the excellent Russian-language website about Anna: http://ljwanderer.livejournal.com/150094.html)

~ And Valentina Orlikova(1915-1991), with her movie-star looks, certainly was the most internationally-fancied woman deck officer in the world. Her high profile was created after she was featured in a USSR/ New York publicity drive in 1943.
But evidence of the mass of women is hard to find, even for Russian speakers. Use the search term 'women sailors' on the RIA Novosti press agency site and there’s just an implausibly smiling woman cleaning up a nuclear ship in 1964, and a young woman on Far East service, who looks rather planted.

A much-admired media icon
By contrast to the now-invisibility of the mass of Soviet women merchant seafarers, the Milwaukee Journal of February 28 1943 headlined an article ‘Pretty little Soviet girl is officer on cargo ship.’

And the Illinois Alton Evening Telegraph celebrated Valentina:
‘Any preconceived pictures you have of Soviet women as tall husky Amazons will have to be revised for Orlikova. She is four feet ten. Gray eyes. Brown hair. Slender little figure in a dark blue suit. She is the wife of a Soviet seaman and the mother of a two year-old boy.
‘In stormy weather or calm seas she stands her watch on the bridge, helping direct navigation through mine-sown and submarine-infested waters. She has directed the evacuation of a ship truck by a mine and has leapt from a flaming vessel into the sea, o be rescued by a submarine. And she talks about it more calmly than most people discuss rationed hoes.’
US writer Anais Nin wrote:
<'A photo of her had appeared, which all of us fell in love with... She conveyed firmness and capability, without hardness or coldness. She became a symbol of woman’s most secret wishes: to be free and in command of her own destiny, responsible without loss of her womanliness.

'We wanted to imitate Valentina Orlikova. We saw ourselves trim, efficient, capable captains of our ship and our own lives. It was not a desire to be a man, but be free and capable of self-direction and professional growth.’ And Nin cross-dressed in her husband’s tuxedo and cut her hair short, in emulation.
So wartime needs for women’s labour, and new temporary alliances of Allied powers, were helped by her not being fitting the burly Russian Bear stereotype. The message was that you could be cute AND a tough worker and a married Mom - and someone from the land of Communism.

(Pic: Anais Nin cross-dressed,from http://pensaleas.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/anac3afs-nin.jpg)

Realities
The reality was that Valentina Orlikova was a dual-ticketed engineer and deck officer, aged 28. And one of thousands of women who were in the USSR merchant fleet long before the war started.
The socialist revolution gave many rights to women, including doctors and scientists, which were astonishing in other countries. By 1933 British economist Sidney Webb had recorded that there was ‘a steadily increasing number’ of women sailors, engineers and wireless operators, usually dressed in trousers. They went to marine training schools along with men.
When they docked in foreign ports the women were seen as novelties and featured in the press.
For example when the Chelyuskinet arrived in New York with exhibits from the Soviet Pavilion at the Worlds Fair in February 1939, the women officers along with what we could call ‘stewardesses’ were pictured by a news agency(see picture below.)

Caption: Left to right Uliana Lebedeva, Mess Girl; Elizabeth Gierorga-Pulo, Radio Operator; Galina Gradsaya, Second Mate; and Nina Todory, Mess Girl.


Wartime
The Soviet defensive navy had the same trouble as most defensive navies in letting women sail in this all-male organisation in WW2. (Finally the USSR did. Britain didn’t, except very exceptionally. And the Canadian navy rejected women radio officers, who instead joined the Scandinavian merchant vessels)
According to historians Markwick and Cardona, 21,000 women worked in the USSR's defensive navy. Some rose as high as captains in the Amur River Fleet, sailing on the relatively safe Amur and Sungari rivers. Those on the Astrakhan, carrying and ammunition, troops, wounded people, and supplies, were much decorated. In the Black Sea Fleet were 2,854 women.
Not all were seagoing and they faced misogyny. Captain Taisa Rudenko-Sheveleva, the first woman naval officer, who had got in by pretending to be a man, said cats and women were traditionally seen as unlucky.
By comparison, the intensively-trained professional seafarers Anna and Valentina were some of the long-accepted technical officers on merchant vessels routinely going deep-sea in dangerous waters, including the horrific Murmansk route.

~ Captain Anna was transporting cargo in the Baltic. She took part in the ‘Russian Dunkirk’, on one of the 190 ships of the Baltic Fleet evacuating people from Tallinn in August 1941. She was also sailing as master of a Liberty ship, transporting Lend-lease supplies from the US, and therefore at great risk of Axis attack.
~ Valentina was working as a mate on cargo ships, including as fourth mate on the armed Dvina, sailing from Archangel to New York in 1942 and 1943 delivering US arms to the USSR.
She’d been ‘serving as mate on hospital ship in the Baltic Sea … the Nazis sowed mines directly in our path. Our ship hit one of them. I shall never forget the terrible moments that followed – the explosions, the flames, the wounded all around needing help – and through it all the faces of my women comrades, strong and heroic…[the water rose, the ship listed]
‘I was on the upper deck, in charge of lowering lifeboats … Despite the frightful danger facing everyone on ship, my heart was calm. I saw there was no room here for weakness. All the women around me, young and old, nurses and crew members, were working quickly, efficiently, confidently….I did not see any of the women make even a gesture towards saving their own lives.’
The ship managed to get to a small island where the wounded were unloaded. The ship temporarily repaired so that it could limp to the home port and be properly repaired.
When ‘the wounded were re-embarked and the ship ready to sail again, I ordered the women to take some rest. With tired, but happy, smiles, they refused …noiselessly they glided through the cabin helping to bring back to health those who had been wounded,’ she told the US media.

In typical ‘women can do it’ and Rosie the Riveter style, the Alton Evening Telegraph reported ‘Orlikova is the only woman mate on her ship. But she does not intend to stop there. Her ambition is to be a ship's captain. She thinks in three more years she should make it.
‘"It's good to have women on ships," she says. "They keep everything clean and in good condition. They are exact as doctors and radio operators, too. And they are not afraid of anything." Have any of Orlikova's order ever been questioned because she was a woman. "Never," she says with a grin.’


COURAGEOUS SOVIET WOMEN SEAFARERS
• Anna Shchetinina (Captain on numerous vessels)
• Valentina Orlikova (Captain of Storm, etc)
• Vera Mitsai (First Mate of whaler Typhoon)
• Alla Rezner (First Mate)
• Lydia Kochetkova (Second Mate)
• Nadejda Zabardayeva (Radio Telegraphist)
• Vera Gorlova (Radio Telegraphist)
• Nadejda Neoslenaya (Surgeon's Assistant)


Pic: Unnamed WW2 woman in Pacific Fleet landing party on their way to Port-Arthur,Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, 1945.Photographed by Yevgeny Khaldei. Courtesy of RIA Novosti.

After the war
Both Anna and Valentina women survived the war, and were much decorated.

~ Captain Shchetinina went on to captain six ships of the Soviet Baltic Shipping Company, MV Askold, Baskunchak, Beloostrov, Dniester, Pskov, and Mendeleev. Then, aged 41 in 1949 she came ashore and taught in the Leningrad Marine Engineering College College where Valentina had studied two decades earlier. Anna later became Dean and wrote a very entertaining lifestory, not yet translated.

(Pictures from http://ljwanderer.livejournal.com/150094.html, with thanks)

~ Captain Orlikova worked on whalers sailing to the Far East from 1947-53. Under international law Russian-style factory whaling was illegal and controversial. She attained her dream to be captain, working on Storm.
Many women were on whalers in both 'male' roles such as scientists and radio officers, and in domestic roles such as cooks, and laundry. Valentina never got the same publicity again.

Pic: Soviet whaler Aleut, 1958. Photo by Yulia Ivashchenko

It’s rather peculiar that the progressive trend of women doing ‘men’s work’ at sea didn’t continue in the USSR. However though this 1960s photo of some Soviet women seafarers visiting Warsash Maritime Centre (now Academy) in Hampshire, indicates they not only existed but traveled. In the 1980s there was at least one woman, Valentina Plutova, a First Officer.


Yet when Nina Baker, Britain’s second women deck officer, sailed to the USSR in the 1970s Soviet officers (male) deliberately visited her ship to see this phenomenon: a woman on the bridge.
(This blog entry is part of a longer article to be published elsewhere, later. Suggestions for additions are welcome.)

Women on British submarines, at last!

From the left: Lieutenants Maxine Stiles, Alex Olsson, and Penny Thackray raise their glasses for the traditional rum tot, with the silver dolphin badge which newly-qualified submariners have to catch in their teeth at this traditional ceremony. (Pic by Thomas McDonald, Sunday Times)

Yes, at last! The first three Royal Navy women to train for submarines have just completed their one-year training course. (And yes, there are still subs left in the fleet - 4 nuclear ones.

Now the lieutenants will serve in Vanguard-class submarines.They've just finished the final part of their training, on HMS Vigilant.

Their graduation will mean they can now go on duty for up to three months at a time, only emerging from deep sea in ports.

THE PIONEERS
- Penny Thackray, 39, from Sheffield: will be training submariners
- Alex Olsson, 26, from Wirral, weapons engineer officer.
- Penny Stiles, 29, from Manchester, logistics officer

It's going to cost money to convert the subs. (Yes, it's the old 'Oh no, we're going to have to find space for segregated toilets' story.) £3 million. It does make you wonder why sensible people didn't design subs for any gender, in the first place. After all, Canadians have had women serving on subs for 14 years now.

Read more at http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/article1407042.ece and http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/Women-qualify-join-submarines-time/story-21055277-detail/story.html


REACTIONS
When the news of these plans came out in December 2011 there was a lot of bigot-blogging about 'wasting public money' and 'Why aren't they at home having babies?' Well, why aren't idiotic reactionaries at home having new brains inserted?

I hope these women give lots of interviews this week so that they educate the public about how it actually is. You're a professional. You go to work. You do your job. End of.

Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond affirmed it as 'not only a huge personal achievement for these three outstanding officers ... but also an historic moment for the Royal Navy and our armed forces.'

Women and submarines in the past.
# WW1 and WW2,: women in shipyards helped make and repair subs and their equipment, including radios

# In WW1 Wrens were pictured standing triumphantly on a captured U-boat. The image was used to rub salt into the wound,: not just captured but stood on by women!

# In WW2 22 Wrens on the Aguila were attacked and killed by a U-boat in 1941. Many of the 20,00-plus servicewomen going on overseas assignments were menaced by U-boats.

# In WW2 women didn't sail on subs, or warships.

# In the Cold War wives of submariners endured sometimes months of radio silence. They include one woman I interviewed who had had a nervous breakdown because she just couldn't cope alone with her first baby being born without support. Her husband didn't surface for months.

# They work in the submarine museum at Gosport, so they know their sub history.

# British naval women have been pressing for this stage for over a decade. Some women overseas are still prevented from serving on subs. It's a last bastion of inequality, sometimes cloaked as gallantry
--
The best women-undersea story
British women passengers probably had more experience being on U-boats than on British subs. In both wars German U-boat crews behaved with gallantry towards the women they discovered they'd attacked.

When U-156 sunk the Laconia in 1942 extraordinarily commander Werner Hartenstein took five rescued woman on board. They were given officers’ bunks to sleep on, and plenty of food.

Blanche Allan was initially 'terrified ... it was stifling inside, a long oven-like corridor of winding pipes, wheels and dials....

'We were too scared to ...[sleep] alone [and so shared bunks] Anyway it was hard to sleep because of the noise and the heat.'

They were aboard the submarine for four days and were submerged for 'two of the most anxious hours I have ever spent ... [but when finally released] the U-boat captain, still a model of courtesy, again apologised for the inconvenience caused us, and wishes us a safe return.'

Pioneering women’s motility: Aileen Preston/Graham-Jones

This week you can hear from a pioneer of women’s mobility, in her own voice. AILEEN GRAHAM-JONES (Aileen Preston, before she married an Oxford doctor) was the driver for suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst in 1911.
BBC Radio Four Woman’s Hour this week (22 Jan 2014) played an archive recording of her talk for that programme in 1962.
Aileen Graham-Jones explained very forcefully how she came to mobility just over a hundred years ago. She took a motor mechanics course, became the first woman to qualify for an Automobile Association certificate in driving, and proceeded to seek work at the wheel, despite the astonishment of males in this very new industry.
Typical of many women pioneers breaking through into deck and engine work on ships from 1970s onwards (and to a lesser extent Victoria Drummond, the first woman marine engineer, who began training just eight years after Aileen), she found that once men discovered she was serious most of them were helpful in assisting her progress.
Aileen drove for the Women’s Social and Political Union Wolseley (donated by motor heiress Mabel Dodge) for six months.
Afterwards she went on to directly help more women become mobile. Professor Krista Cowman explained that in 1913 in Kensington Aileen opened up a motoring school for women where they could learn how to change a wheel and fix a vehicle. In WW1 she became a VAD.

COUNTERPART
She had counterpart in another WSPU chauffeur Vera (Jack) Holme. (see pic, driving Emmeline Pankhurst)

Now a heroine of some feminist lesbians, ‘Jack’s’ papers at the Women’s Library include this poem, The Home is her Sphere. By SM George, it highlights mobility:
A women may travel if she be so inclined
It is even supposed it may broaden her mind
Spend the spring at Biarritz and the winter in Rome,
But she never can vote, for her place is the home.
(http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=106-7vjh&cid=-1#-1)

Of course, the women’s suffrage movement as a whole also led to women’s increased mobility and motility (the sense that one can indeed be mobile) because of its confident assumption that women’s place was everywhere, not just at the hearth.
It was too early to imagine that women would one day be at the helm of big ships, not only the small pleasure boats they were just beginning to use. But by employing ‘lady chauffeuses’ the WSPU certainly paved the way.
Pioneering women like Preston and Holmes proved that women could travel confidently, not just as passengers but with technical knowledge of the vehicles they commanded. They are the foremothers of today’s women captains, such as Inger Klein Olsen (see pic) celebrated in other entries in this blog.

You can hear it Aileen Graham-Jones’ recording on http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03q96c3